Empfehlungen basierend auf "The Professional Product Owner: Leveraging Scrum as a Competitive Advantage"

A startup executive and investor draws on expertise developed at the premier venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and as an executive at Uber to address how tech’s most successful products have solved the dreaded "cold start problem”—by leveraging network effects to launch and scale toward billions of users. Although software has become easier to build, launching and scaling new products and services remains difficult. Startups face daunting challenges entering the technology ecosystem, including stiff competition, copycats, and ineffective marketing channels. Teams launching new products must consider the advantages of “the network effect,” where a product or service’s value increases as more users engage with it. Apple, Google, Microsoft, and other tech giants utilize network effects, and most tech products incorporate them, whether they’re messaging apps, workplace collaboration tools, or marketplaces. Network effects provide a path for fledgling products to break through, attracting new users through viral growth and word of mouth. Yet most entrepreneurs lack the vocabulary and context to describe them—much less understand the fundamental principles that drive the effect. What exactly are network effects? How do teams create and build them into their products? How do products compete in a market where every player has them? Andrew Chen draws on his experience and on interviews with the CEOs and founding teams of LinkedIn, Twitch, Zoom, Dropbox, Tinder, Uber, Airbnb, and Pinterest to offer unique insights in answering these questions. Chen also provides practical frameworks and principles that can be applied across products and industries.  The Cold Start Problem reveals what makes winning networks thrive, why some startups fail to successfully scale, and, most crucially, why products that create and compete using the network effect are vitally important today.

One of the world's great designers shares his vision of "the fundamental principles of great and meaningful design", that's "even more relevant today than it was when first published" (Tim Brown, CEO, IDEO).Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure out which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door.The fault, argues this ingenious -- even liberating -- book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology. The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization.The Design of Everyday Things shows that good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time.The Design of Everyday Things is a powerful primer on how -- and why -- some products satisfy customers while others only frustrate them.

Ben Horowitz, cofounder of Andreessen Horowitz and one of Silicon Valley's most respected and experienced entrepreneurs, offers essential advice on building and running a startup—practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog.While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. Ben Horowitz analyzes the problems that confront leaders every day, sharing the insights he’s gained developing, managing, selling, buying, investing in, and supervising technology companies. A lifelong rap fanatic, he amplifies business lessons with lyrics from his favorite songs, telling it straight about everything from firing friends to poaching competitors, cultivating and sustaining a CEO mentality to knowing the right time to cash in.Filled with his trademark humor and straight talk, The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz's personal and often humbling experiences.

“Our job as Scrum professionals is to continually improve our ability to use Scrum to deliver products and services that help customers achieve valuable outcomes. This book will help you to improve your ability to apply Scrum.” –From the Foreword by Ken Schwaber, co-author of Scrum Mastering Professional Scrum is for anyone who wants to deliver increased value by using Scrum more effectively. Leading Scrum practitioners Stephanie Ockerman and Simon Reindl draw on years of Scrum training and coaching to help you return to first principles and apply Scrum with the professionalism required to achieve its transformative potential. The authors aim to help you focus on proven Scrum approaches for improving quality, getting and using fast feedback, and becoming more adaptable, instead of “going through the motions” and settling for only modest improvements. Whether you’re a Scrum Master, Development Team member, or Product Owner, you’ll find practical advice for facing challenges with transparency and courage, overcoming a wide array of common challenges, and continually improving your Scrum practice. Realistically assess your current Scrum practice, and identify areas for improvement Recognize what a great Scrum Team looks like and get there Focus on “Done”–not “sort-of-Done” or “almost-Done” Measure and optimize the value delivered by every Product Increment Improve the way you plan, develop, and grow Clear away wider organizational impediments to agility and professionalism Overcome common misconceptions that stand in the way of progress Register your book for convenient access to downloads, updates, and/or corrections as they become available. See inside book for details.

"Stafford Beer is undoubtedly among the world's most provocative, creative, and profound thinkers on the subject of management, and he records his thinking with a flair that is unmatched. His writing is as much art as it is science. He is the most viable system I know."―Dr Russell L Ackoff, The Institute for Interactive Management, Pennsylvania, USA"If ... anyone can make it [Operations Research] understandably readable and positively interesting it is Stafford Beer . everyone in management ... should be grateful to him for using clear and at times elegant English and ... even elegant diagrams."―The EconomistThis is the second edition of a book which has already become a management 'standard' both in universities and on the bookshelves of managers and their advisers. Brain of the Firm develops an account of the firm based upon insights derived from the study of the human nervous system, and is a basic text from the author's theory of viable systems. Despite the neurophysiology, the book is written for managers to understand. The companion volume to this book is The Heart of Enterprise, which is intended to support and complement this text."Stafford Beer's works represent required reading for everyone who believes that a capacity for rigorous thinking is an essential attribute of today's successful managers and administrators. Brain of the Firm shows a first-rate intellect at work and provides concepts, models and inspiration for both practitioners and teachers."―Sir Douglas Hague, CBE

"A rousing manifesto of mastery in a connected world." –GoogleThe Industrial Age has taught us how to break problems into parts, but not how to build parts into solutions. We’re baffled when we’re confronted with complex challenges like recession, political gridlock, climate change, childhood obesity, pollution, and failing schools. We see them as separate ills, each requiring a separate remedy—if we can imagine a remedy at all.Why are so many jobs disappearing? Why are a few people getting rich while the rest of us struggle? How can we pay for the costs of healthcare? Why can’t our trusted institutions behave ethically? What’s the cause of governmental gridlock? How can we afford to educate our children? How do we stop damaging the ecosystem? Why do we create ugliness?Author Marty Neumeier suggests that these problems are merely symptoms of a much larger problem–our inability to deal with interconnected, non-linear, and amorphous challenges. It’s not that our problems are too difficult, he argues, but that our skills are too basic. Success in the post-industrial era demands that we move our thinking from the static, the linear, and the step-by-step to the dynamic, the holistic, and the all-at-once.In this sweeping vision for personal mastery in a post-industrial era, Neumeier presents five metaskills–feeling, seeing, dreaming, making, and learning–that can help you reach your true potential. They’ll keep you two or three steps ahead of the machines, the algorithms, and the outsourcing forces of the “robot curve”. They’ll also bring you greater creativity, higher purpose, and a deeper sense of fulfillment.Metaskills is more than a manifesto. It’s a compass for visionary leaders, policymakers, educators, and planners. It’s a creative framework for designers, engineers, scientists, and artists. It’s a picture of the future that allows people from a wide range of disciplines, industries, and professions to envision new ways to create value together. Perhaps more important, it’s a long-overdue examination of what it means to be human in the 21st century.

Oren Klaff, sales and negotiating expert and bestselling author of Pitch Anything , reveals new playbook on persuasion in business.No one likes being pressured into making a purchase. Over decades of being marketed, pitched, sold (and lied) to, we've all grown resistant to sales persuasion. The moment we feel pressured to buy, we pull away. And if we're told what to think, our defenses go up. These days, it's just not enough to make a great pitch. That's why Oren Klaff says it's time to throw out the old playbook on persuasion.Instead, in Flip the Script , he devises a new approach based on a simple everyone trusts their own ideas. Instead of pushing your idea on your buyer, if you can guide them to discover it on their own, they will believe it, trust it, and get excited about it. Then they'll buy in and feel good about the chance to work with you. Klaff breaks down this insight into a series of actionable steps, for - Achieve Status Make sure that your potential buyer or investor recognizes you as a peer on the dominance hierarchy by using a status tip-off, a strategically placed remark that identifies you as an insider who can relate to your client's concerns.- Close the Certainty Allay your buyer's fears about going into business with you by delivering a flash roll, a practiced display of technical mastery that proves your expertise in the domain.- Present Your Idea as Plain You can go overboard trying to present your product as a cutting-edge, first-of-its-kind solution. The more you emphasize the familiar, reliable elements of your product, showing that it's just "plan vanilla," the easier you make it for your buyer to say yes.Packed with examples and stories of the long-shot, often hilarious deals that Klaff has pulled off over the years, from training a team of motorcycle parts salesmen in the freezing reaches of North Dakota, to selling investors on a Chinese marketplace in Hawaii, Flip the Script is the most entertaining, informative masterclass in dealmaking you'll find anywhere.

How inclusive methods can build elegant design solutions that work for all.Sometimes designed objects reject their users: a computer mouse that doesn't work for left-handed people, for example, or a touchscreen payment system that only works for people who read English phrases, have 20/20 vision, and use a credit card. Something as simple as color choices can render a product unusable for millions. These mismatches are the building blocks of exclusion. In Mismatch, Kat Holmes describes how design can lead to exclusion, and how design can also remedy exclusion. Inclusive design methods—designing objects with rather than for excluded users—can create elegant solutions that work well and benefit all.Holmes tells stories of pioneers of inclusive design, many of whom were drawn to work on inclusion because of their own experiences of exclusion. A gamer and designer who depends on voice recognition shows Holmes his “Wall of Exclusion,” which displays dozens of game controllers that require two hands to operate; an architect shares her firsthand knowledge of how design can fail communities, gleaned from growing up in Detroit's housing projects; an astronomer who began to lose her eyesight adapts a technique called “sonification” so she can “listen” to the stars.Designing for inclusion is not a feel-good sideline. Holmes shows how inclusion can be a source of innovation and growth, especially for digital technologies. It can be a catalyst for creativity and a boost for the bottom line as a customer base expands. And each time we remedy a mismatched interaction, we create an opportunity for more people to contribute to society in meaningful ways.

The definitive playbook by the pioneers of Growth Hacking, one of the hottest business methodologies in Silicon Valley and beyond.It seems hard to believe today, but there was a time when Airbnb was the best-kept secret of travel hackers and couch surfers, Pinterest was a niche web site frequented only by bakers and crafters, LinkedIn was an exclusive network for C-suite executives and top-level recruiters, Facebook was MySpace’s sorry step-brother, and Uber was a scrappy upstart that didn’t stand a chance against the Goliath that was New York City Yellow Cabs.So how did these companies grow from these humble beginnings into the powerhouses they are today? Contrary to popular belief, they didn’t explode to massive worldwide popularity simply by building a great product then crossing their fingers and hoping it would catch on. There was a studied, carefully implemented methodology behind these companies’ extraordinary rise. That methodology is called Growth Hacking, and it’s practitioners include not just today’s hottest start-ups, but also companies like IBM, Walmart, and Microsoft as well as the millions of entrepreneurs, marketers, managers and executives who make up the community of Growth Hackers.Think of the Growth Hacking methodology as doing for market-share growth what Lean Start-Up did for product development, and Scrum did for productivity. It involves cross-functional teams and rapid-tempo testing and iteration that focuses customers: attaining them, retaining them, engaging them, and motivating them to come back and buy more.An accessible and practical toolkit that teams and companies in all industries can use to increase their customer base and market share, this book walks readers through the process of creating and executing their own custom-made growth hacking strategy. It is a must read for any marketer, entrepreneur, innovator or manger looking to replace wasteful big bets and "spaghetti-on-the-wall" approaches with more consistent, replicable, cost-effective, and data-driven results.

Even the smartest among us can feel inept as we fail to figure our which light switch or oven burner to turn on, or whether to push, pull, or slide a door. The fault, argues this fascinating, ingenious—even liberating—book, lies not in ourselves, but in product design that ignores the needs of users and the principles of cognitive psychology.The problems range from ambiguous and hidden controls to arbitrary relationships between controls and functions, coupled with a lack of feedback or other assistance and unreasonable demands on memorization. The book presents examples aplenty—among them, the VCR, computer, and office telephone, all models of how not to design for people.But good, usable design is possible. The rules are simple: make things visible, exploit natural relationships that couple function and control, and make intelligent use of constraints. The goal: guide the user effortlessly to the right action on the right control at the right time. But the designer must care.The author is a world-famous psychologist and pioneer in the application of cognitive science. His aim is to raise the consciousness of both consumers and designers to the delights of products that are easy to use and understand.